Introduction

Liverpool Football Club have celebrated several milestones in their 125 years history, including the opening of the new Main Stand at Anfield in September 2016. Anfield is the tenth largest sports stadium in the United Kingdom and along with several football clubs across the country, the demand for season tickets has been growing steadily over the years. This has prompted Liverpool, like many other clubs, to extend seating capacity through new or enlarged stadiums.

To ensure the matchday experience continues to fulfil the needs of fans, Liverpool FC has added many additional features, such as improved access for wheelchair users, high-speed Wi-Fi and a complete suite of video display monitors across the stadium to enhance the customer experience.

As part of the redevelopment project, Liverpool FC decided to upgrade the audio visual technology deployed at Anfield stadium including better quality signage, with the ability for the first time to easily manage, control and publish to the displays around the food kiosks, hospitality suites, press box and corporate offices for all events.

Signagelive Digital Signage solution along with Exterity’s IPTV solution were selected to meet this need.

Key project requirements and challenges

A key requirement was for an integrated system with the flexibility to deliver a variety of branded stadium location-dependent content across 600 Signagelive powered displays, including menu boards at the food concourses, ability to manage their integrated IP video infrastructure adding the ability to show live premium TV channels within its executive corporate boxes for all events.

The highly flexible solution was to be managed centrally, with complete synchronisation to ensure all supporters could watch the same feed throughout the venue if required.

The displays have many uses including streaming live match footage, videos from LFC TV (Liverpool FC’s official TV channel), broadcasting sports channels, displaying advertising content and match day information.

The Solution

Lumino AV provided the overall management of the project, with Signagelive selected as the digital content platform provider, Exterity selected for the IPTV system and Samsung for their display technology.

The use of Signagelive allowed for Liverpool FC to introduce cloud-based digital signage into their stadium for the first time, empowering the management team to easily control, manage and publish their desired content around the stadium using their own content strategy. This strategy equipped with Signagelive’s feature set allowed for the targeting of specific content to food kiosks, concourses and executive suits, tailored for the type of event to ensure the highest level of digital signage use.

Taking the core fundamentals of scalability, ease of use and efficiency the Signagelive Team were able to work with the Lumino and Liverpool FC teams to provide consultancy, implementation and support for the project every step of the way. In the first season after the opening of the Main Stand, we also provided additional premium support for all home matches to ensure that any issues or queries could be escalated and handled, however, due to the stability and ease of use this service was not required for the second season and all management was taken in-house by Liverpool FC.

Aside from the Signagelive support service, we also provided custom creative services for the menu boards, allowing for dynamic data-driven templates to be used so that match day products and prices could easily be changed.

The Exterity solution includes AvediaStream TV gateways for delivering Freeview TV channels to screens around the stadium. AvediaStream e3655 Encoders to stream the LFC TV channel direct from its in-house production studio across the network to Signagelive powered displays in the ground.

Exterity AvediaStream e3635 Encoders deliver content as multicast channels to ensure the right content, at the right time is playing across the stadium.

Samsung supplied the new displays and external players for the legacy displays providing bright and vibrant images with large display areas and slim bezels.

Key Benefits

Across the stadium, from food kiosks to executive lounges, Signagelive powered displays are showing scheduled content that is tailored for the type of event and the time of day.

Liverpool FC now has the ability to manage their digital signage network from anywhere in the world, and can see what devices are both online have the latest scheduled content, without having to walk around the stadium to check.

Across Liverpool FC’s numerous executive boxes and lounges, Signagelive powered displays can be set up to display any video source or signage requirement.

Signagelive were able to provide consultancy to fully understand the project requirement and then work in collaboration to suggest ways to schedule content based on the event; providing premium support for the first season to give that extra piece of mind as the platform became an essential part of everyday operation.

Evidence of Success

Following a successful implementation project, the new digital video and signage solution is delivering an enhanced level of visual quality, reliability and features for both staff and supporters at Anfield stadium.

The integration with Signagelive makes it simple for administrators to quickly update signage content and deliver it to any location across the stadium using web-based tools.

The use of Signagelive Premium Support was not taken up after the first season as the platform and scheduling was so easy to manage that it was no longer required.

The Exterity system displays live TV, video and digital signage to just under 600 Signagelive powered displays showcasing the latest news, exclusive interviews, videos, live commentary and match highlights via a number of channels including LFC TV, Sky Sports HD, BT Sport HD and Freeview.

Colin Farquhar, CEO, Exterity

Liverpool FC offer an experience that highlights the flexibility and power of a modern IP video and digital signage solution within a stadia environment. The mix of video, display, cloud-based and on-premise technologies enables the club to tailor its content easily while providing future-proof capabilities, allowing them to deliver new services and features over time.

Ian Scott, Managing Director, Lumino AV

Exterity’s plug-and-play solution was ideal for this project, with its ability to easily integrate with other third-party systems and manage the delivery of all video content from a central location, as well locally in each supporters’ lounge. What’s more, Liverpool FC can easily add displays to the system, wherever there is a network connection.

Jason Cremins, CEO, Signagelive

As a life-long Liverpoool supporter I was delighted that Signagelive was selected to deliver the digital signage and IPTV playback throughout Anfield. The project demonstrates the power of our robust, easy to use cloud-based platform for sports stadia and arenas; from driving digital menu boards through hospitality lounge displays.